Recent news that Microsoft and Barnes & Noble agreed to
partner on the Nook e-reader line rather than keep fighting over
intellectual property suggests the prospect of more settlement
and fewer IP suits in the industry. However, the deal further
obscures the blurry IP and patent landscape currently impacting
both enterprise IT and consumer technology.

It is good to see settlement — something I’ve been calling for,
while also warning against patent and IP aggression. However,
this settlment comes from the one conflict in this ongoing war
that was actually shedding some light on the matter, rather than
further complicating it.

I wrote last year about the way Google’s Android mobile operating
system was serving as a more open alternative to Apple’s
iOS, but not so open that it didn’t leave opportunity for an even
more open alternative.

Given that we continue to see software patent-based attacks on
Android, as well as swirling FUD around coverage of the attacks and never
ending suits and settlements and courtroom developments, it is
clear it will be a long time before any of this legal business is
ever close to settled, unless ended by settlements first, which
is likely.

However, I’m more interested in the technology in the meantime. I
also think it’s interesting to see, if not a ‘more open’ …

There are many questions that arise out of Oracle’s copyright and
patent infringement complaint against Google regarding its use of
Java in Android. There are several things that make the suit
significant to the entire industry: it centers not just on
software copyright, but also software patents (an increasingly
and hotly debated issue), the quickly-expanding smartphone market
and open source software. The first question is: what is Oracle
doing?

Many are speculating that this is simply an effort to further and
more effectively monetize Java, a storied program language that
has move more toward openness and survived several supposed death
sentences as newer languages arrived. Still, with all of the open
source parts — GlassFish application server, MySQL database,
OpenOffice.org suite — is Java the most significant to Oracle? It
may be, but regardless of what Oracle is doing, its legal moves
here may certainly have an impact on the …

I’ve been talking to device manufacturers and the Linux-centered
software providers that feed them code for mobile phones, TV
set-top boxes, industrial control, automotive technology, medical
devices, military uses and a slew of other categories commonly
classified as embedded devices, and I can definitively report
that I am not hearing or sensing any fear, uncertainty or doubt
(FUD) as a result of Microsoft’s TomTom patent suit.

I wrote last month that the controversial MS TomTom suit was
not aimed at Linux as much as TomTom and some
market categories for Microsoft. While we must all remind
ourselves that anything may be possible considering court rulings
and Microsoft strategies, I don’t see Microsoft’s TomTom suit as
truly aimed at Linux. If it is, I don’t see it having much, if
any, impact on Linux. …

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